What's Your Favorite Children's Book?

Wednesday is International Children's Book Day. Troy keeps telling me that I'm falling for too many of these fake holidays but this one seems like it's been going on for long enough to be legitimate (started in 1967). Plus, this one's kinda like "Brush Your Teeth Day" or "Feed Your Children Day" or "Amanda's Birthday"...we really should be celebrating it everyday anyway.

Every year it's celebrated on or around Hans Christian Anderson's birthday which is April 2nd. The International Board on Books for Young people assigns a host country to choose a theme and create a poster with an image created by a local illustrator and a message to young readers by a local author. This year's country is Thailand and the theme is: Books enlighten; knowledge delights.

So, there are a bajillion zillion books out there aimed at our kiddos, which means there are at least 17 zillion that are just plain terrible. You know...the ones with 200 words per page with terrible illustrations, a meandering story line and lots of unlabeled quotes so when you do the voices they get all confused and with big page numbers so the kids know when you "creatively fast-forward." I think I've read most of those.

I'd like to get input from all the smart people I know out there. What are the best books (picture books or chapter books...whatever) for children?

My favorite picture books are:

Bark, George! by Jules Feiffer










and Tuesday by David Weisner

Amanda Reads Books?

Well I finally got a library card and decided that I should start reading from the huge list of recommendations I've gotten from people. I looked around our little branch looking forward to starting a good book that night and all (and I mean ALL) the books anyone had recommended to me were gone. Book 2 or 3 of David Weber's March series was in...The Lions of Al-Rassan but no Tigana to be found. No Tom Robbins, no Ursula K LeGuin and I couldn't remember Sarah Monette's name.

I ended up putting a bunch of books on hold but in the meantime I needed something to read right away. So what do you do in a tiny tiny library when you want to read something new, something good and you can't find any of the books your friends & family recommend?

I thought about asking a librarian but I couldn't find any that weren't being hassled to death at the check out area. I thought about looking up recommendations online but I don't have any favorite websites for that kind of thing.

Here's what I did. I wandered up and down for a while trying to figure out what I was looking for--and how to judge a book by its cover. I wanted something short (I had a bunch of books on hold, this was just to tide me over), something contemporary (just my mood), something without a slutty heroine (so no squirrelly pink titles and no Fabio on the front) and something without 800 pages of fight scenes that seemed to be written with a pen in one hand and a d20 in the other (so fantasy was risky). Having decided that, I started in the general fiction section (past the SciFi, past the Mystery, Horror & Romance) and just picked something on the first shelf of the A Authors that seemed to fit the criteria.

I found The Translator by Leila Aboulela. I don't think my choosing methods are very refined or effective so I was pleasantly surprised to have really enjoyed it. It was quiet and lonely, tragic and contemplative but in the end it was a satisfying subtle story about religion, love and family.

The writing style was very distinct and when I began the book I wasn't sure if I was absorbing all the information. The metaphors were rich and placed so subtly I felt like every sentence was so much more than I was seeing. After a couple of chapters I became accustomed to the flow of the writing and realized that the dense imagery and the quick shifts between memory and the present added to this idea of feeling solitary and quiet in a loud and crowded, fast-moving world.

The story was about a Sudanese widow who works as a translator for a university in Scotland. How she deals with the death of her husband, her young child, her place as a Muslim in Western Culture, her relationship with her colleagues, her Mother-in-law and family back in Sudan is all explained in this quiet, thoughtful manner that makes you feel as though you've gotten some secret insight into a very private woman's darkest and most sincere thoughts.

Her life experiences have very little to do with my own but reading this book allowed me to understand that we all feel the same things-- inadequacy, sorrow, fear, joy, love, faith and doubt.

If you're looking for a quiet book and a quick but satisfying read, I completely recommend this book. It's a chick-flick as far as books go and a little more challenging than the brain-candy I've been reading lately though so make sure you're not in a Tom Clancy place when you start it!

So tell me, when you go to the library and can't find this book on the shelf, how will you pick?

Walkin' Boots & Swimmin' Goggles

I love it when Troy gets home and we get to sit around and discuss books or movies or music. It reminds me that I'm an intelligent adult with intelligent-adult-ish thoughts. The rest of the day is more like this:

It may not be intellectually stimulating but it makes for a pretty hilarious day.

Troy's Book Reviews Redux

I just finished a few more books, so it's time for another book review session! Before I start though, I need to tell you that I despise spoilers - that's why I don't really get into the details of the plots in any of my reviews.

This time I'm going to go from worst to best, here goes:


Watchmen by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons

Yes, this is a graphic novel (no, it's not a comic book, there's definitely nothing comic about this book). I picked this book because it had been a long time since I'd read a graphic novel, and this is the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award. It's also on Time Magazine's list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present" and is apparently the only graphic novel on that list too. So it's got to be good, right? WRONG!

For me, the most important part of a graphic novel is the artwork, followed closely by the story. This failed on both counts. The individual chapters were published in the mid-80s and it shows. It's very "4-color" (realistically inked, but with poor color depth and pronounced halftones) and that style doesn't appeal to me at all. Also, there's some nudity - not a lot, but it was never necessary to really tell the story, it seemed like a cheap trick to make the book seem avant-garde. Also, there was gore (I'm not a fan) - not a lot, though, and it was mainly story driven.

But what about the story?! Wow, Alan Moore really had something to get off his chest about the fundamentally flawed nature of society and human character, and he's really heavy-handed with it in the plot. The story is set in an alternate history 1980s where there are masked heroes, but very little in the way of super powers. It covers the stories of two generations of heroes - along with all their character flaws, relationships, etc. To give the author some credit, the characters are very well developed. Also, this was written during the cold war when planetary destruction by nuclear war was on everyone's minds, so I guess it makes sense to have that play a big role in the plot and the tone.

The book uses 2 big gimmicks to really lay the metaphors on thick. The first is the large section of text at the end of each chapter. These are usually in the form of book excerpts or news articles (set in the story's world), uncovering a little more about each character. These are generally WAY too long and don't reward you with enough insight to make slogging through the text feel worthwhile. The second gimmick is the use of excerpts from a comic book that one of the characters is reading - a comic within a comic. It's an interesting idea and kind of neat at first, but again, the metaphor was laid on way too thickly and it got old right away.

So would I recommend this book? No, not really. If you're really down on society and want a gory, and darkly preachy graphic novel, you may want to try it. No, even then, I'd recommend a nice compilation of The Darkness over this. That said, critics have really gone head-over-heels for this book and there's apparently going to be a Watchmen movie in 2009, so what do I know?


The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

This book is a sequel to Old Man's War, which I recommended in my last book review post. I really liked the tone and narrator perspective of Old Man's War and I was hoping for more of the same. The Ghost Brigades didn't have the same perspective, nor was it even the same kind of book - but in the end, it didn't let me down.

The story is told in the third person and is a much more detailed story with more dialog driving the plot than in Old Man's War. Because of that, I had a hard time getting through the first couple of chapters, but eventually it did launch into a similar sort of "life story" tale that made Old Man's War so good, and I had trouble putting it down. I liked the character development and the theme of what it means to be a traitor. Again, this is a military book so it's violent and cussy; be warned. I definitely recommend it if you liked Old Man's War. I've started on the third book in the series, The Last Colony, and it still hasn't grabbed me. Hopefully that one will be on my next review post.


Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

This is what I call a "big science" science fiction book - where there's some really-large scale advanced technology (think Larry Niven or Ben Bova), but it's not about the big science. It's pretty much a contemporary novel set a few years in the future. It's mainly a series of first person flashbacks that tell the story of Tyler Dupree - his childhood years, and his relationship with two friends (brother and sister) who live in the Big House. Again, the book isn't about the science fiction, it's about the relationships and about growing up. It’s also an interesting tale about how people react to the end of the world.

When I first started reading the book, I was really annoyed with the author's style. It seemed like he wrote things awkwardly (like pausing a sentence in the middle, referring to something else, and then continuing). I don't know if the writing got better as the book went on, or if I just got used to it, but as I fell into the story the writing seemed much better. There are several really good one-liners and sound bites that I've thought about several times since I finished - which I can't tell you because of my obsession with not spoiling a story!

There are a lot of great metaphors (they're subtle, thank you!!) and thought-provoking situations and plot developments. This is one of those books that I'll be thinking back on for a long while.

This is a great stand-alone novel, but I just found out that there's a sort-of-sequel called "Axis" (I guess it’s set in the same world) which I'll definitely try. Needless to say, I definitely recommend this for a good scifi read and for a thought provoking story about growing up as well as an interesting end of the world drama. I told Amanda that she has to read this one so we can "book club" it (yes, book club is a verb).


So those are my three reviews. I'm planning on keeping up the book review posts, at least for a while. Here's what I'm currently reading:

• The Last Colony by John Scalzi
• Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
• Farthing by Jo Walton
• PIC Robotics by John Iovine - but that doesn't really count!

What's That Green Stuff On My Shirt

Walking into the store last night Troy told me I had a big swath of mud on the back of my coat.

Last week I walked to school with "WOW! You're a STAR!" stickers stuck on my sleeves.

After lunch the other day, while walking around town, I scratched an itchy spot on my arm to realize it was a ramen noodle.

Today I looked down and saw a big green something on my shirt.

These are the ones I've noticed. What have I been walking around in that I didn't?

And, more importantly, who will I blame it all on when the kids are older?

Dodge and Weave...FAIL

I was tagged again. But by a different tagger and a different game. Here are the rules for this one:

1) Take a picture of your bag

2) Show a picture of ALL the contents in your bag and name them. (NO CLEANING OUT FIRST)

3) "Bag Tag" 5 to 10 people

4) Make sure to leave a comment on their blog so they know THEY'VE BEEN TAGGED.

So here it is:

Wallet
Expired Boy Scout Membership card
Random's new non-lead-paint-containing Progress bead holder thingy
a library card from Michigan
Sucrets
lip junk
Tide Pen
Measuring tape
AAA battery
fingernail clippers
canadian coins
a twisty tie
A fake crystal
prayer assignment for sacrament meeting
earrings
tictacs
a 15 puzzle thingy
a box cutter
and a pen.

So what does that say about me? I'm thinking it says: "I wish I was "always prepared" but all I'm really ready for is a knife fight with a slobby guy suffering from bad breath, chapped lips and hangnails."

Pinewood Derby - Resistance is FUTILE!

Wow, Pinewood Derby. What an intense, agonizing roller coaster of excitement, despair, and 2nd degree burns.

Last year, Random had a very cool Lego Brick car. It was very authentic-looking and very slow. This year Random's goal was to have a car that didn't finish last in every race! Physics time! I sat down with Random, and we talked about what could make the car accelerate, what would make it slow down, and what would keep it going. We picked where the center of gravity should go, and how to get it there - we also picked the best spot for the wheels. Last, Random listed out everything we needed to do to finish the car:



So, we worked hard on a car, only to discover at the last minute that it had been ASSIMILATED!!!!

Random's been watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager lately, and he decided that his Pinewood Derby car needed to be a Borg cube. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but ALL of our tools are in Michigan! How do you build a Borg Cube wooden car with only a drill and plastic picnic cutlery?!

Xerox to the rescue! My job is tight! ... off the hook! ... "money!" (as the cool kids are apparently saying now). We have an amazing prototype shop and the engineers can use it for personal projects. So I took the Pinewood Derby kit to work on Saturday, and carved it up on a 3-axis mill. I cut it to shape, drilled new axle holes, bored out some pockets for weights and electronics, cut up some scrap sheet steel for weights, and cut a scrap circuit board to fit on top.

Here's all the bits:


We all decided that any Borg Cube worth its salt needs a creepy green glow. So I sat down with the kids and we talked about circuits, batteries, parallel vs. series, etc. Random and Savannah drew up a circuit diagram and I soldered together some thin batteries, a high-intensity green LED, and a switch to give the car "Sweetest Ground Effects." We assembled everything and glued it together with some major adhesive.


We ground all the axles and wheels (to reduce friction), and Amanda glued them in. Amanda and Random did some great painting and dry-brushing and we had our intimidating Borg Cube!


So it looks good, but can it race? Here's the first race of the evening:

So Random won nearly all of his races and he had a great time!

One more Pinewood Derby down. I wonder what we'll do for next year?!

The Gomms Go Green

I've decided global warming is a bad idea and we should stop it immediately. We've taken drastic measures to go green. Here is a glimpse into our journey.

Step One: made the background of our website green.

Step Two: wrote a smug self-congratulatory Al-Gore-at-the-Academy-Awards-style blog post

Step Three: bought a couple of those green reusable bags from WinCo

Step Four: left said bags at home when I next went shopping but DIDN'T waste all the gas to go back home and get them.

Step Five: thought about teaching the kids the mantra of my grandpa "If it's yellow stay mellow. If it's brown flush it down" and decided I'd rather pay some guy a couple bucks to sprinkle plankton in the Pacific Ocean to offset the excess toilet water.

Step Six: felt superior remembering using cloth diapers on Random.

Step Seven: Read this (thanks Ellisa) and then felt superior remembering using disposable diapers on Savannah & Scout.

Step Eight: pulled out the dryer, removed the back and cleaned out the vent with the vacuum. No really...that's a good one.

Step Nine: Troy started walking to work...that's a good one too....and I'd really like to take credit for it but pretty much I'm just the cheer squad. Goooo Troy!

Step Ten: started bandying about phrases such as "carbon footprint" and "local provenance"

I hope this has helped you catch the vision of environmental consciousness.

In all seriousness...have any of you found ways to be more environmentally friendly without breaking the budget or recycling your kids in for a "greener" model?

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Growing up in the Bryan family meant several things. It meant you had the ward's funniest guy as a dad (yep I still remember him MC'ing the talent show as Grover) and the ward's most together lady as a mom (only one I know who can throw together a luncheon complete with entertainment in under 15 minutes). It meant lazy summer days with Grammie making tuna sandwiches (with onions and celery...no one made better tuna sandwiches) and getting all the gum we wanted out of the Gum Drawer (who has a gum drawer?). It meant the lazy summer days ended when Grandpa got home and we went out to pick raspberries (we ate more than we picked...until we realized that we'd be eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner by the end of the summer). It meant raking leaves at Grandma's house and trying to do that Charlie Brown thing in the piles (until we were so covered in those invisible splinters that we gave up) and then we went in to watch Three's Company and eat peanuts till the wee hours with Grandma. It meant not telling Grandpa we got hurt because he was so protective he'd go throw away whatever it was that hurt us and grouch about it the whole time.

But it also meant that on St Patrick's Day we would sit around and wonder if we really were Irish. Ultimately, it turns out we DO have Irish ancestry but with a surname like Bryan we had claimed it the whole time anyway!

My Grandma would invite us down for Corned Beef and Cabbage she had cooked in the pressure cooker...low and slow till it was tender and soft. Then we'd all remember how grateful we were for our Irish ancestors and to only have to eat cooked cabbage once a year.

My sister Sarah still insists on making Corned Beef and Cabbage. She also insists that people who come to her house on St Patrick's Day eat it too. I suggest doing your visiting teaching TOMORROW people!

I've forsaken the time honored tradition of squishy skunky overcooked cabbage and rubbery stringy pressure cooked corned beef for the new time honored tradition of just dying everything I can get my hands on green. I should mention here that Savannah throws up if she eats too much food coloring. So as we are eating the green oatmeal, ramen noodles and rice today, possibly retching into the toilet as our bodies reject the over-saturation, I'm still grateful for our Irish ancestors, for St Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland, but most importantly, for growing up as a Bryan.

Bad Ideas

Yesterday I took the 3 little girls I watch to Target to pick up some things for Troy. While we were there I found these egg shaped bubbles in a 3-pack for a buck. Not the greatest deal on bubbles ever but they were pink and there were 3. It just seemed like destiny.

When we got them home and opened them up I realized a number of things. First, they had perfectly round bottoms. I thought that would be ok since there was a handy string the girls could wear around their necks while they blew the bubbles. Great.

Not great. The strings were attached to the bubble-wand-lids and the strings were only big enough to go around their wrist. But that's ok because they could hold the bubbles in one hand and the wand (securely tethered to their wrist) in the other. Great.

Not great. The bubble-wands broke off of the lids and settled at the bottom of the bubble bottles. Their teeeeny tiny openings that made them so cute and appealing to the little girls proved to be an evil plot by chinese manufacturers to overthrow the capitalist tyrants with stickiness and crying 4 year olds.

So it got me to thinking. I've had some bad ideas in my time. I've seen plenty of bad ideas that I managed to avoid. It's time to make a list, laugh a little, and start the healing.

Bad Ideas:

-That time I left the 3 year old Rand alone with the peanut butter

-Carpeted Dining Rooms

-Epiladies

-5 minute long pop-diva ring tones

-That time we pressured Savannah into admitting she put the Rescue Hero down the toilet, ripped the toilet out, flipped it over and found out it was just a giant poo

-non-water-proof bibs

-"noisy toys" with no off switch

-That time they had the cub scouts take off their shoes, turned off all the lights in the gym and told them to play tag

-Chicago Math

-Single ply kleenex

-The Chutes (I could get on board with a game called Ladders)

-"Michigan Lefts"

So that's what I had on my mind this morning. I'm sure there are more bad ideas out there. Add to my list and while you're shaking your head at the idiocy of it all, check out this video.

Tagged? RATS!

Well this thing is going around and while normally I would deftly avoid it by hitting the "delete" button on my fancy gmail interface, I haven't figured out how to delete other people's blog posts yet and besides, there was no jinx involved for NOT doing it or warm feeling of well being promised if I did...therefore I must!

1) What I was doing 10 years ago

1998: Troy and I were living in the "mushroom apartment" that was probably earning its name by growing mushrooms in the carpet about this time of year, and I was about 8 months pregnant with Random. I spent my days running away from preying mantises (manti? mantis?), reading prenatal books and worrying about all the lead in the pipes.

2) 5 things on my list to do today

-Make Dinner (we're having curry YUM)
-Send an email to Jimmy King, Magician
-Fish the frisbee off the roof (or convince the kids the wind will do it)
-Fold all that laundry I washed today
-Exercise

3) Things I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire

-Buy a house & hire somebody else to do all the decorating & landscaping
-Travel to Asia & Europe
-Give a llama to a needy family

4) 3 of my bad habits

-I put inside jokes about llamas on our family's blog
-I drink too much soda
-I stay up too late

5) Places I have lived

Seattle, St Louis, Bonney Lake, Puyallup, Provo, Idaho Falls, Eden Prairie (suburb of Minneapolis/St Paul), Canton (Michigan), Chesapeake (Virginia), Burlington (suburb of Toronto, Ontario), Wilsonville (just south of Portland)

6) Things most people don't know about me:

I have an irrational and completely overwhelming fear of moths.

Now I have to tag somebody...oh man, how do I choose? Who will actually do it? Who actually reads this blog? Seriously, do people who remember 1998 read blogs?

Julie, you're it...hope you're enjoying your vacation :-P

Troy's Search for Books

And now for a break from all the House Selling posts...

Way back in one of our first posts, I mentioned that I was reading the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. These are pretty good. They're basically gritty modern detective stories, set in Chicago with a LOT of supernatural elements thrown in. I definitely recommend the Dresden Files.

When I finished those books, I realized that I was fresh out of good Scifi / Fantasy.

The first thing I did was go to Powell's Books in downtown Portland. This is an AMAZING bookstore - the largest I've ever been in. It sells new and used books, and has a lot of character. It also has author recommendations mixed in with the books.

Based on the recommendations for Scifi, I bought The Algebraist by Ian M. Banks. To be fair, I didn't really give this book a chance. I was in the mood for something a little more action-oriented, and this was a little slower with a lot of politics. I seemed like a well-thought-out and interesting setting. I only read a couple hundred pages when I gave up on it, but I think I'll come back to it at some point. I would recommend this if you're looking for a highly political, very far future space opera (think the Dune series).

So that was sort of a bust. I tried some books recommended by friends, but I didn't find anything interesting (fantasy romance novels are just not for me). By a stroke of luck, I found out that tor.com is launching a new eBook download service, and to help promote it they're giving away free eBooks - one a week for 12 weeks. (They're still doing it, so go sign up right away!).

The first eBook was Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (I guess it's actually called "The Final Empire, book 1 of the Mistborn series," but whatever...). Let me just say, WOW! I printed out the first two chapters of the book and read them on my walk home from work. As soon as I got home I opened up the ebook on the computer and kept reading. I couldn't get enough of it and devoured it very quickly. It's been a long time since I read a fantasy novel this good. He throws out all the old ideas of fantasy (you won't find any dwarves or elves or anything else Tolkein-esque or any Dungeons & Dragons rip-offs). The characters are believable and you care about them right away. The magic is original, and the politics aren't too overpowering or convoluted. The whole story is very satisfying. I can't recommend this book (or this author) highly enough!! If you like fantasy even a little bit, go buy this book right away!

I finished Mistborn while we were on vacation, and we went to a book store so I could buy the sequel. Unfortunately, they only have it in hardback and I can't bring myself to pay $30 for a book. Instead, I bought Brandon Sanderson's stand-alone novel Elantris. Again, WOW! I read a chapter or two while we were on vacation, but when we got back, I sat down and read this book straight through in one day. Again, this is an original, understandable, and believable setting. The characters are well-developed and endearing. The magic is interesting and original, and the book is a stand-alone novel, so you don't have to commit to some 8000 page series. I strongly recommend this as well. Amanda is currently addicted to it and has been reading it whenever she gets a spare second (which isn't often for a mom of her caliber!).

The most recent book on Tor's free ebook list, is The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. I'd already read this one back when I was at Ford (during the Inferno days as it were). I really enjoyed this one. It has a very subtle magic system with some interesting religious undertones. The story is well paced, and this book makes for a very nice slow, savory read. This is a trilogy, and the third book just came out. I recommend this one.

Well, this list sounds like all fantasy, but I didn't give up on Scifi! The second ebook from Tor was Old Man's War by John Scalzi. This was just the science fiction novel I was looking for. It's only about 300 pages, so it's a fairly quick read, but I had a VERY hard time putting it down. Without giving too much away, it's a military novel with a good deal of action. It's told from the perspective of a 75-year old man, and has a lot of interesting twists and turns. It feels a lot like Heinlein (think Starship Troopers), but be warned that it's REALLY cussy! There are plenty of F-bombs, but I thought it was fairly appropriate for the genre. I'd definitely recommend this one if you like scifi.

So that's it for what I've been reading this month. I'm currently reading the second Mistborn book, The Well of Ascension, and totally loving it.

If you have any recommendations for good Scifi or Fantasy, definitely post a comment!

----- Update -----
I actually read all day and finished The Well of Ascension tonight. It was great but ended with a major cliffhanger. The sequel, "The Hero of Ages" won't be out until this October! What will I read until then?!!! Also, one more note about Brandon Sanderson: Robert Jordan, the author of The Wheel of Time series, died recently. Brandon met with him and went over all of his notes beforehand and he'll be writing the final book of the series, A Memory of Light.

PRAY HARDER...QUICK!!!

I just got an email from our awesome Michigan neighbor Julie. Julie's crack team of neighborhood watchers (her kids: Spencer & Jessica) caught our Postman in the act of knocking over our mailbox...2 days before the inspection!

It was really shocking but the Realtor said it shouldn't be a problem. He'll give the heads up to the buyers and let them know we'll fix it when the ground thaws...I wonder if it'll thaw before the closing date.

Maybe this is a good sign...if everything that can go wrong does BEFORE Friday maybe Friday will go off without a hitch.

Thanks for keeping such a good eye on our home Dyal family.

Valiant

Yesterday Rand came running back home in tears. He had been playing with friends outside after school and I thought he had been hurt. I met him on the stairs and he broke out in loud sobs as he hugged me. "My feelings are hurt," was all he said.

I took him inside and we sat in my bedroom for a few minutes to talk about what happened. The thing that was the most painful for me to hear were his first words. "It was Tyler and Kyle," was all he said but the look of betrayal on his face was clear. These two boys are his buddies, his pals, his chums. They're the boys he plays with at home when he's not forced to play with kids in his own class, his sisters or someone else I've brought over. His voice was strained and he sounded like even he couldn't believe that those two had done whatever it was to him.

I asked what they did and his tears renewed. After a few moments he was calm enough to talk and told me the story.

Our family has really clear media guidelines. Random isn't allowed to watch PG-13 movies (or Rated R movies), the shows he watches on TV have to be seen by Troy or I and approved and he isn't allowed to play Rated T or M video games. He's said before that he's the only kid ALIVE (yes he can be dramatic) that doesn't think South Park, Family Guy and the Simpsons aren't meant for kids. His friends know about these rules mostly because they've invited him over for some PG-13 fun and Rand has told them he won't participate.

So Random was out playing with Kyle and Tyler. They play rowdy boy games all the time. Most of the time it's a mix between Star Wars and "War." Yesterday they were playing as usual and Kyle invited Rand over to play a Rated M video game. Random told him no and they started to tease him. They called him names and didn't relent until he finally left in tears.

It would have been so easy...and so much easier...if he had just gone over to Kyle's house and played the game but he didn't. I was so impressed with his determination to obey and how unyielding he was in the face of some pretty aggressive peer pressure.

Not everyone shares our standards for media and that's fine. I think everyone understands the principle of drawing a line in the sand. That's what we've done with our family. We've simply said, here is where we will not go. We talk about it as a family a lot and use this as a metaphor for teaching our children to have integrity and make firm moral decisions in all areas of life.

In our church, the youngest children's classes are named CTR and then have a number corresponding to the childrens' ages. The CTR stands for 'Choose The Right' and here they learn basic principles of faith, who Jesus Christ is and God's plan for us. After they have been baptized, the names of the classes change. Now instead of being a "CTR" they are called Valiant. Valiant is a word I associate with warriors and people much older than Rand. People who stand against mighty trials and come off conqueror despite overwhelming discouragement.

For a 9 year old, or even a 39 year old, what can be more discouraging than standing before people you respect and have them point and laugh at you for your beliefs? Imagine trying to explain, then trying to change the subject, then just trying to get away all while the taunts and the jeers are getting louder and more bold.

I associate the word Valiant with warriors. Now I associate it with Random. I know as he gets older, the battles will get more intense and his enemies more subtle but after yesterday, I'm confident that he'll be ok.

Our House

Some of you may have read the email plea we sent out earlier today. If you missed it or I missed your email address, here it is:

Well after nearly a year on the market we've gotten an offer on our home. We're happy about it but we're also so nervous we want to poo our pants. Our inspection is this Friday (March 7th) at 9 am EST and we are hereby requesting all of our friends and family to send us any prayers, hopes, ritualistic sacrifices, rain dances, email scams for luck (just the luck--keep the email :-P), crossed fingers and first-star-wishes that the inspection will go well and they'll still want our house...without a bunch of conditions.

If you wanted to see what our house looked like when we put it on the market, here is our listing with a virtual tour and everything.

Thanks for all the congratulations and well wishes we've received so far!

By the way, for all those of you who offered to record your ritualistic dances and send them to me, I'll make sure to post them on the blog for everyone to see! I'll be sure to put a XXX rating on them to warn everyone if they're too authentic (ie. nude).

Amanda's Day Job

In December I had a woman at church ask me if I ever babysat...like all day long day-care-esque babysat. I told her I had before but wasn't doing that at the moment. It turns out she was going back to work and needed a babysitter for her 4 year old daughter all day and for her 7 year old son after school. I volunteered and pretty soon I was getting all kinds of calls about watching various and sundry children.

I keep a daily blog for the kids since it gives me a sense of accountability and also some sort of proof to the world that what I'm doing is hard work. It's a private blog since I wanted to protect us all from scary people that would want to steal the cute kids or something but it's been a lot of fun to keep that up to date.

I had someone accuse me (you know who you are) of not keeping our blog very updated so I thought I'd share what we did today at our house:

When It Rains, It Pours, and pours and then leaks all over the floor

Well we got back into town from our GREAT vacation Saturday morning but driving all night long twice within a week was more than my immune system could handle! I came down with a pretty major cold Saturday night and by Sunday morning I felt like poo. This morning I woke up early so I could hopefully have the medicine working by the time all the kids arrived and I think my plan worked. The headache's gone, my nose isn't running THAT much and my throat no longer feels like someone's raking it with hot pokers.

The girls have done really well this morning. They played and played for a couple of hours and I had to call them in for a snack. They've colored and lego'd and pixtered to their heart's delight.

I took advantage of their preoccupation to throw some laundry in the washer. I even threw in Scout's life jacket for a hot rinse. Of course that was a terrible idea. It floated on the top and made the washer overflow. I knew it was risky but I figured it was worth it to have a non-mildewy life jacket.

I was moving all the luggage out of the hall and trying to mop up the mess when the girls all piled out of the room. Why did you move the bags? Why are you cleaning the floor? Why are there all these bags? Why is there water on the floor? Why did you make the washer put water on the floor? Why did you put the bags in the water?

I'm constantly amazed at how disrupted these little ones get by just a little variation in life. All 3 girls will remind me if we miss a song or a do something out of order at circle time. My hope is that with our schedule they will feel comfortable knowing what happens next. That they'll have enough stability in their little lives that when it rains, and pours, and leaks all over the floor, they'll be able to deal with it better than me!

Phoenix

We just got back from a FANTASTIC vacation in Phoenix Arizona. We drove down there last week to visit with our friends the Leningtons. We had a great time sitting around the pool playing games while the kids got sunburned. The weather was awesome...between 70 and 80 the whole time.

The drive took 24 hours on the way down since we hit a major blizzard going through the pass near Mount Shasta. We were completely annoyed that we were welcomed into California by snow. California is supposed to be warm! The drive back took only 21 hours although Troy and I both realized that we're not young enough to do 2 overnighters within a week. I've got a cold and Troy insists that he was run over by a truck at least 3 times.

We found a game store down there and bought Puerto Rico, saw Spiderwick Chronicles with the kids, went to a book store, and went out to eat with Matt's sister and her family who lived in the area. Other than that, we literally just sat around, talked, laughed and played. My kind of vacation!

The kids really enjoyed their time too. We only get to see the Lenington's every couple of years but every time the kids re-meet each other and have a blast. Scout was doted on by their oldest daughter Jessi and loved every minute of it. Savannah and Rachel held hands and skipped around in their own world. Random and Jimmy played video games as much as they could and then would go outside to show each other their "karate moves."

I think next time we're going to try to convince the Lenington's to come up to Oregon. I'm already planning our trip to Powell's, the ocean, Mount Hood...but mostly just sitting around and playing more games!!